Servant/Project Idea Thread, "The Womb"

[pinetree]

Yeah I haven't delved into the class much due to waiting for LB6. What I did when writing my Pretender was using basically the same situation as Oberon (since I was already spoiled on him anyway).

[Nuclear]

De Classe Ministri "Simulator"
On the Servant Class "Pretender"

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Avalon le Fae and Case Files. Proceed with caution.

I've been meaning to write up an article about the Pretender class, but stuff always got in the way. So now, with a mental plan and not quite enough time, here it is. As we properly begin I'll just let the cat out of the bag and say that Pretender is the F/GO class par excellence. By this I mean that Pretender is the class that resonates the most with the story's themes, both within Avalon le Fae and in F/GO in general.

Pretender's relationship with LB6 is actually quite obvious: names are extremely important to fairies, as they signify one's "life mission", so to speak, and so a change in one's name effects a change in one's raison d'être. The Fairy Knights are the most obvious example of this, but almost all the important fairy characters (Morgan, Castoria, Hope, Aurora) are defined by their names to one extent or another.

In the macro-context of F/GO's overarching story, the idea of "achieving a satisfying conclusion to one's life" is one that's been floating around since Arc 1. In Babylonia, CasGil (iirc) talks about how humans essentially do not finish all they set out to do, so others taking up the task of finishing other people's life work is how humanity has flourished up til now. This idea of course culminates in Salomon, where Mash is revived by Fou for reasons close to what CasGil expounded, and Solomon's third NP is explicitly defined as forcibly finishing everything he has to do so no one will need his help ever again. Though the height of this idea's expression is in Arc 1, it's still somewhat present in Arc 2: one of Chaldea's (or Ritsuka's, at the very least) major motivations post-Olympus is "saving Olga"; only by doing so can they consider their mission "complete". This motive is a major point in how Chaldea ultimately decides to deal with Koyanskaya in Tunguska Sanctuary.

So what does all this have to do with the Amogus class? For that, looking at the recent Nasu TM-Ace interview should be helpful:

Simply put, someone who became a hero while feigning being something else. [...] For example, let's say a certain A has died with their ambitions unfilled, and in his place [b]a certain B continues their writings[b], leaves their comments and fulfills the role of A into the end, ultimately leaving all the fame with A. Meanwhile, B who was the interior of this persona cannot find any spots to occupy and ultimately the only one who becomes a hero is A, the exterior. This is what the Pretender class, one who wears a role, entails.

In other words, those who qualify for the Pretender class are individuals who take on the role of somebody else, only to arrive at a better conclusion-- tick more boxes off the to-do list-- than the original. Fits like a glove to the themes we talked about earlier doesn't it?

As a case study on how these concepts apply to members of the class, we'll take Hephaestion as our type specimen (I would do Oberon, but he's an oddity even within this already-strange class). This has the added benefit of distinguishing Pretender from Faker, the other Amogus class.

Hephaestion (or rather, his sister who took on the same name) is initially summoned as part of Dr. Heartless's master plan. Said plan involves using a "body double" of Iskandar to gather worship and turn the latter into a Divine Spirit. This, I think, is the essence of the Faker class: they're spirits who act as body doubles for another. Put another way, they're individuals who tick the same boxes as another person. Faker Hephaestion cannot exceed Iskandar's deeds; otherwise, the connection between them would fail, and so would Dr. Heartless's plan.

The case (pardon the pun) of the Pretender-class Servant Hephaestion-Mnemosyne, however, is something quite different. Through vagaries I'm too out-of-the-loop to describe but not to vaguely remember, "Hephaestion" acquires the name of the Chaldean observation device Mnemosyne, along with its powers. The Pretender-class Servant summoned by Chaldea under the name "Hephaestion"-- now "Hephaestion-Mnemosyne"-- is neither Hephaestion nor Mnemosyne, but has the powers of both-- and succeeds in (both in the sense of "does well" and "inherits") the role of both.

So yeah. That's my little write-up on the Pretender class. I hope this helps people write more Pretenders and stuff. If I got something wrong, just DM me and I'll sort it out. Or you could drop it in the thread and make me look stupid, I ain't ur mom lol.

Anyway. Ciao.

[Justiciar Hux]

Or to put it in simple theatre terms (as Oberon would want), a Pretender is an understudy to whoever they share their name(s) with. A Faker is instead a body double or stunt actor for whoever they share their name (singular) with.

[ElioHerondale]

Onto the next servant. Baal-Shamin, one of the celestial beings of the Palmyrene Pantheon and God of the Sky.

[Random]

^ On that subject, I am contemplating doing a figure yet am bouncing back and forth between the Faker and the Pretender Class but in regards to the latter, I feel like the official explanation doesn't exactly match the two canon examples we see?

I am curious as to what people's thoughts are on creating a Pretender Servant with the information we have now?

I don't think they should be two separate classes in the first place, honestly, but I don't think it's much blurrier than Berserker and Avenger, for example. Fakers are substitutes. Pretenders are an extension of the real deal.

What I can remember for sure is that Pretenders have the Anti-Human Order Skill as a Class Skill.

Oberon has it. Pretenders in general probably don't.

I wish FGO would stop using "class skill" to mean "passive".

[Comun]

Berserker is a Class that gained a lot more identity with FGO, so I don't think it and Avenger are even similar. There's an overlap in candidates, sure, but the mechanics of the Class are perfectly different.

[Random]

I would agree with that. I'm drawing the comparison because I've spoken to multiple people who didn't understand what was different about them. My point is more along that lines that I don't really see much overlap in the mechanics of Pretender and Faker either.

My opinion can basically be summarised as "I think there should be more overlap to the point that having two is redundant, and then cut one of them". They essentially have the same theme, and I think there's already too much overlap in a pool of potential candidates, so even if they're not mechanically extraneous, they narratively are - see our only canon Faker appearing in FGO as the obligatory "we got a new class" welfare Pretender.

[Random]

Update: I have no willpower and am now making a Pretender, I guess

[pinetree]

Berserker and Avenger are distinct both thematically and mechanically, the only similarity I can think of is the class influencing their minds but that happens to a lesser degree in Avengers and in a very different way so I don't think it's even worth mentioning as a one.

I don't know how you can conflate them without reducing the both of the classes to "angry people"

[Random]

Berserker and Avenger are distinct both thematically and mechanically,

which makes the fact that I've had people ask the difference even more baffling. Needless to say, we should not merge Avenger and Berserker. I stand by the possibility of a Faker-Pretender merge though.

and a mooncancer-foreigner merge if we're on the subject of hills i will die on, emphasis on die

- - - Updated - - -

"we", I say, like this is the Type-Moon writer's room

[pinetree]

I stand by the possibility of a Faker-Pretender merge though.

Pretty much already happened. Faker is a one-off plot point in Case Files while Pretender not only is already a staple by means of being in FGO, but also replaced it there.

and a mooncancer-foreigner merge if we're on the subject of hills i will die on, emphasis on die

???????

[DelRey]

emphasis on die

i can arrange that

threat from the stars vs. threat toward the stars.
thats my hill.

[Dragolord09]

For a Modern Fiction Servant, would the cast from King Arthur and the Knights of Justice be considered Fakers or Pretenders?

[NINE-lives]

Hey legendary, mind if I give you a grand servant idea.

The Bashkir hero Ural-batyr became a really obvious grand saber when I started thinking about it. Dude basically built th Ural Mountains out of the corpses of the giants and demons he killed. He had a legendary winged horse that could easily be explained as a divine beast. He literally made the world immortal by dumping the water of life into the ground. His kit would probably have something to do with slaying giants and demons based on his killing of the dev’s. His noble phantasms would definitely be his winged horse, his sword which is named after him and the waters of immortality. I feel like he’d work for your age of the gods lostbelt based on the entire moral of Ural-batyr being about the immortality of man and the denial of death which would work with the theme of “gods vs humans”.

[ElioHerondale]

What Outer God would work best for a servant based on Qays ibn al-Mulawwah and Layla al-Aamiriya from Layla and Manjun? I'm thinking of doing either Yig and Yidhra or Nodens and Lythalia

[DelRey]

Zhar and Lloigor, the twin obscenities perhaps without knowing anything about those two humans

[Dragolord09]

...what are the odds that as soon as I offer up Iyo as a Servant idea, she gets added to Grand Order?

[Comun]

You proposed her after the Neo Yamataikoku name was revealed, and Keikenchi has multiple statements claiming he wanted to write more of Iyo than just the two scenes she got in Yamataikoku 1, so I'd say about 95%?

[TQG Imaginatorious]

Quick, does anyone know any really obscure figure out there but still relevant enough that they are a heroic spirit instead of just being a phantom? Looking for a challenge for my next next servant

[BnEl15]

Lesser-known figures are usually my thing, but I might as well ask first; any specific field you're interested in?